Ethics and Morality involving Drone Strikes

Ethics and Morality involving Drone Strikes

During the past years drones have slowly been incorporated into warfare most namely for strikes against terrorist organizations. There are many advantages to using this new technology over typical reconnaissance and weapons. Drones can observe from extremely high altitudes and carefully watch a target for hours or even days on end going unnoticed. Without a trace they can take immediate action should an opportunity present itself for a strike without putting a pilot in danger being that they are controlling the system from thousands of miles away. Before the United States was brutally attacked by Al Qaeda in a number of instances including the tragedy of 9/11, there was a ban on Assassinations in Executive Order 12333 Part 2.1. On September 17th, 2001 President George W. Bush signed a CIA Memorandum of Notification modifying the ban on assassinations to specifically empower the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to use lethal covert action to disrupt Al Qaeda. This memorandum authorized the Central Intelligence Agency to unleash the lethal General Atomics MQ-1 Predator armed with AGM-114 Hellfire missiles developed for precision strikes and have since been used in a number of targeted killings of high-profile individuals. While many of these attacks have gone on without casualties, the fact that it is possible to unintentionally have civilian casualties brings up the issue of morality. 

 In the book, “Predator: The Secret Origins of the Drone Revolution” by Richard Whittle, there are a number of issues brought up encompassing the idea of ethics involving targeted killings. Drones have been slowly adopted since the simple beginnings of radio controlled aircraft during World War II. The Army for years had been purchasing propeller driven remote control target drones even adding a film camera to them for photo reconnaissance and decoys to fool air defenses. The Air Force had shown no interest in drones until the Soviet Union shot down one of their U-2 reconnaissance jets. Another U-2 reconnaissance jet was shot down over Cuba but this was a lethal attack that killed the pilot. After these two spy planes were downed it sparked an interest in the United States Air Force to start looking into drones. While these fireflies were being used in great numbers more than half of them were shot down or crashed. With these remotely piloted vehicles being so unreliable it only further hardened the Air Force’s culture of holding aircraft with pilots aboard to the highest level of attention. 

Once Karem  developed a drone with a reasonable endurance time that was actually reliable, the military actually began to pay attention to unmanned aircraft. The Army was not doing so well in regards to Aquila drone so funding was added to help aid Karem with his Amber project. This promised to equip the amber with a number of different payloads including daylight and infrared cameras. Turning this project lethal, Karem also introduced an Amber with a missle shaped nose to carry a warhead to allow the military to recognize all of its potential. Even with the great feats in innovation that Karem developed with Leading Systems, the company went bankrupt. General Atomics acquired not only the assets of Leading Systems but also Karem himself setting up the company to make their mark in the drone revolution. When the Pentagon awarded General Atomics the contract to build the MQ-1 Predator a new era was started. After demonstrating the Predator’s capabilities it was commissioned to Afghanistan to hunt for Osama Bin Laden.

The first big win came when the Predator was successfully able to identify a tall man in white robes emerge from a building around Osama Bin Laden’s residence. With no question that this was the target the summer project was geared towards finding. With no cruise missiles deployed after spotting Osama Bin Laden a lot of people were upset that no action was made after the target was spotted. The Predator’s flights over Afghanistan proved it’s worth significantly in being a revolutionary eye in the sky but there were a number of calls for it to become more than that. Air Force General John Jumper was in the works to arm the Predator. 

While guided missiles have been around for awhile they have not been perfected. In April 1999 two guided missiles struck a passenger train killing many civilians and a need for a better alternative was introduced. A major legal issue encompassing the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty was brought to Jumper’s attention. A uling came about stating that the Predator was acceptable and did not violate the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. After the CIA and NSC had been impressed by the the summer project’s Predator video of Osama Bin Laden they wanted to send armed Predators to Afghanistan. The attack on USS Cole had sparked a deep yearning for retaliation and now that they were learning of intelligence that predicted Al Qaeda was planning another attack on the United States made arming the Predator that much more Achievable. When the Predator spotted Osama Bin Laden at Tarnak farms, the failure to act in sending deadly forces sparked outrage with a number of people. It is a possibility that had they fired a missile from a Predator that was armed the soldiers killed on  the USS Cole may have lived to see another day.

Once the Hellfire missiles were integrated with the Predator there was one more thing that needed to be included. A toggle switch needed to be applied so that someone other than a military pilot could take legal responsibility for the strike. The toggle switched was connected to the Predator’s flight control console and was named the monkey switch. Even the name of this raised concerns because basically it was saying that a monkey could facilitate a lethal attack. Politically speaking this makes it extremely easy for commanders to order strikes. 

Drones like the Predator can give extremely useful information and intelligence. This intelligence is presumably the most important key element in deciding if drone strikes are ethical. The predator has an extremely high endurance time making it very capable of deciding with the utmost certainty the right target is identified and acquired. Even with this decent amount of certainty, the topic of civilian casualties needs to be addressed more thoroughly. In the Epilogue of the book, Whittle highlights President Obama’s speech at the National Defense University, in Washington, D.C., on May 23, 2013, saying, “This new technology raises profound questions about who is targeted, and why; about civilian casualties, and the risk of creating new 

enemies; about the legality of such strikes under U.S. and international law; about accountability and morality.” But he also defended the tactic, saying drone strikes were legal under America’s “legitimate claim of self-defense” against Al Qaeda and other terrorists and were being conducted under “clear guidelines, oversight and accountability.” The new guidance on “Use of Force in Counterterrorism Operations” stipulated, among other things, that “lethal force” (drones strikes) would be used only when there was no alternative means of preventing a terrorist posing a “continuing, imminent threat” to “U.S. persons” and when there was a “near certainty” that no “non-combatants” would be injured or killed. The process used to reach those conclusions, remains cloaked in government secrecy. It seems like if this “near certainty” is actually a reliable figure for this plan to not harm any civilians, then what he is saying could hold up to the ethical values of the population. 

The epilogue of the book also highlights where drone technology might go in a study, “Unmanned Aircraft Systems Flight Plan, 2009–2047”—even forecast that by the one hundredth anniversary of the independent Air Force in 2047, the service would have armed drones automated with artificial intelligence capable of deciding on their own when and whether to attack a target. The report admitted, however, that the development of such a capability would be “contingent upon political and military leaders resolving legal and ethical questions” about such “lethal autonomy,” and the Air Force later backed away from the concept. This raises major concerns with where this technology is going. Equipping an unmanned aerial system with not only lethal weapons but also the decision making capabilities of artificial intelligence seems like a recipe for disaster. The capabilities of armed drones have already detached the act of killing to mearley pressing a button. Once you get rid of the already subtle involvement humans have in taking this action, you get rid of the humanity and accountability for the decision in general.